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You can now stream movies from The Pirate Bay

A new 'Stream It!' button has appeared alongside torrents on The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay

A new browser plugin for Windows and Mac computers has turned The Pirate Bay into the world's biggest streaming site.

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The Torrents Time plugin lets people stream torrents embedded in webpages without needing to use an external client or download the torrent itself. Developed by the team behind Popcorn-Time.se, a spin-off from the popular pirated streaming service, Torrents Time can be added to any torrenting site.

A new 'Stream it!' button has appeared alongside existing options to download, although the feature is still in beta with poor image quality and slow speeds the main issues.

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Unlike conventional torrent downloads, the service is easy to use and lets users start watching pirated films and TV shows in seconds. The streaming add-on works by finding enough peers to stream content without buffering. Existing torrent streaming services used HTTP, which quickly became too demanding on bandwidth.

The streaming player is compatible with Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer and will work with any video file found on The Pirate Bay. It has already been trialled on a browser-based version of pirated movie service Popcorn Time, which has been subject to several legal challenges.

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By launching on The Pirate Bay, the service has instantly become one of the world's largest online streaming platforms, albeit one completely based on piracy. VentureBeat reports that Kickass Torrents is also working to integrate the plugin.

The team behind Torrents Time claimed that ad server integration was "coming soon". And if Torrents Time can make money, and dodge almost inevitable legal take-downs, it could be here to stay.